Tatsumi Kimishima

Tatsumi Kimishima

Born

Nationality

Company

Position

Corporate President & CEO (2015 - 2018)

University

Hitotsubashi University

Tatsumi Kimishima(JPJapanese: 君島 達己) was the 5th President of Nintendo, succeeding Satoru Iwata. He formerly helped Nintendo capitalize on the Pokémon craze in North America and ran Nintendo of America after Minoru Arakawa left. He retired in June 2018, leaving Shuntaro Furukawa as the next President.

Contents

History

Prior to working at Nintendo, Kimishima worked Sanwa Bank of Japan for 27 years. At Sanwa Bank, Kimishima perform many corporate duties and held positions in numerous North American locations.

In 2000, Kimishima was selected to be the Chief Financial officer of the Pokémon Company. In his brief 2 year tenure, he helped market the Pokémon games, helping sell Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal to the Americas.

With the retirement of Minoru Arakawa, Hiroshi Yamauchi decide to select Kimishima as the next President of Nintendo of America. While Nintendo did lose a number of Western partners due to Arakawa's and Howard Lincoln's departures, Kimishima helped maintain Nintendo's marketshare in the Americas. He was promoted to the newly created CEO position in May 2006. In 2013, Kimishima returned to Japan, where his CEO position was replaced by Satoru Iwata and Kimishima becoming the Managing Director of Nintendo as well as a board member. Following the death of Satoru Iwata, he was selected to be promoted to the company's President in September 2015. He later hosted the Nintendo Switch presentation held on January 12, 2017; this marked the first Nintendo related event hosted by Kimishima.

After the General Meeting of Shareholders held on June 28, 2018, Tatsumi Kimishima officially stepped down as President of Nintendo, with Shuntaro Furukawa being appointed as his successor. Kimishima remains at Nintendo as an Executive Adviser.